Does innovation time pay off? Google it.

So, your organization talks a lot about innovation but never really gets around to spending time on it. There are a few meetings here and there when something urgent comes up, but nothing really happens. After the meeting, the idea is forgotten until the next crisis.

That's not unusual. People talk about it but don't do much about it. I think organizations don't think the time is well invested. Let me rephrase that. Leaders don't think time spent on innovation is a productive investment. If you want to find out whether time spent on innovation is a good investment, Google it. But, don't just do a search. Look at how Google spends time being innovative, and find out how effective it can be.

According to an article in the New York Times, Google lets its employees spend 20% of their time "to work on whatever projects fan their passions." The results? Very solid, by any measure.

It's a litany of really neat products: Google Earth, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and SketchUp, just to list a very few.

It has been an excellent investment of time and people. For employees, the freedom to be truly creative and get paid for it is the real bonus.

What Color Is Your Message?

While color is often a personal choice, it can have an impact on how you deal with people. According to an article in Science magazine, the colors you use affect how your message is received.

Researchers tested the impact of color on how well people performed certain tasks. "For those that required attention to detail--such as proofreading a list of addresses--participants were slightly more accurate when the background was red, compared to blue or white. Blue, on the other hand, stimulated creativity."

Researchers also tested the impact of color on advertising. "Volunteers who viewed two versions of a fake camera ad--one that featured detailed images of the camera's features and accessories, and one that featured more creative photos (see picture)--rated the first ad more favorably when it appeared on a red background and the second one more favorably when it appeared on a blue background."

It's not conclusive, but it's worth considering. What colors do you use in your environment with your team. Makes you rethink beige.

Gaming the Incentives Game

I've always thought that measuring and rewarding people on tight metrics is short-sighted. I call it "What gets rewarded gets distorted." I remember that one boss justified paying some people more than others by saying, "They're the rainmakers. They bring the money in." So, the rest of us, who produced what they sold, were not really important, only the ones involved at the very end. That we produced a great product and made their job so much easier was not to be considered. That the sales people left other duties behind because they did not contribute to their sales meant that they were added to the rest of our work. So, some saw it as being punished for doing a good job.

Dan Heath and Chip Heath write a great article in Fast Company on what they call the focusing illusion, the way incentives and other metrics tend to distort what gets done in business or any enterprise that uses them. Dan and Chip provide several examples of people who changed their behavior, perhaps to the detriment of the organization but to their own advantage, as a result of the metrics/incentives.

In short, they point to how these metrics, intended to fix some problem, can be gamed by the participants and hurt the organization. They start out with the example of former NFL quarterback Ken O'Brien, who had a problem with interceptions. At one point, when his contract was renegotiated, a clause was inserted that penalized him for each interception. What did O'Brien do? He dramatically reduced the number of passes he attempted, reducing the number of interceptions, which may have hurt the team in the end but made sure that his pay was not cut.

I have one example that irks me, Burger King. After I order at my local BK at the drive-thru, I pull up to the window where I pay and am promptly directed to move forward to a door where they deliver my order. I might understand if there is a long line behind me, keeping orders from being placed. However, this happens at all times, even when there is no one behind me. This is intended to keep workers focused on getting the orders out as quickly as possible and cut the time it takes for customers to get their order, that time being measured by how long you wait at the window. Once you move your vehicle up to the door, the clock stops. So, to the BK managers, it looks like they have a phenomenal 3-5 second wait time for order delivery. It must look great at BK headquarters. Of course, it really ticks me off. I make a point of avoiding BK because of that, except that my younger son insists that he wants the Chicken Tenders only from BK.

I have one more example, except that I can't recall where I read it. However, I remember some of the details. One company, faced with customers complaining about deliveries taking too long to get to them, instituted a metric that tracked every order up through the time the order actually left the plant gate. So, the shipping department would get the orders packed, whether they were actually complete or not, and physically carry them outside the plant to a storage location just outside the gates and marked the order as having left the plant, which was technically true. The managers saw a dramatic reduction in orders left but customers were worse off as delivery time actually deteriorated. In the end, the managers started to give the shipping department more control and responsibility for how they did their work, improving actual delivery times.

The simple lesson is that virtually any policy, metric and incentive system can be gamed unless it is well thought out. Rewards left strictly to metrics can hurt an organization and ignores the crucial role that good managers/leaders play.

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

So said T. S. Eliot, Nobel Prize winning poet. And, as it turns out, so do the Mayans. According to various sources, mostly on the web, Dec. 12, 2012 will mark the end of one age and the start of an other, or not. The world may end on that day through some sort of cataclysm, or it may just be another day.

With the inauguration of Barack Obama, what will we get? Depending on who you talk to, it is either the start of a new era of progress and hopefulness or the sad end of an era.

In either case, the world will not end or reboot. It will keep going. Remember the year 2000 hype? It was either to be a disaster of crashing planes, closed banks and computer mayhem or it was the start of a new era? It was neither. On January 1, 2000, it was just another day.

So, what's a leader to do? Actually, nothing, I think. We just go on doing what we were doing all along, getting our people and organizations focused and moving forward, always. Just don't wait for the end to come about or some magical change to take place. Get excited for the history of the day, but don't start behaving as if history is taking over for you.

Staying On The Creative Edge

As a leader, one has to keep a sharp edge at all times. The day-in, day-out struggle of getting your organization moving forward can wear down your edge. After a while, you tend to get dull, as does your thinking. So, how do you keep that sharpness? There are many ways to do it. Today, I will suggest one: find a new challenge to focus on during your off time. It can be related to what you do or not, as long as it is somewhat removed from the daily issues you deal with.

For example, if you work in the insurance industry, you already spend quite a lot of time focusing on risk, projections, HR, customer turn-over, etc. Few people in the insurance industry deal with every type of insurance segment. More likely, they deal with a niche: autos, business, residential, shipping, legal or some other segment. If you deal with auto insurance, create a challenge to think about in, say, shipping insurance issues. You can also take on a challenge about something complete unrelated to insurance. Think about traffic issues in your neighborhood, city, region, state, etc. Think about solid waste disposal issues. Take your pick. Read a magazine in an unrelated discipline: waste disposal, accounting, shopping malls, dental practice, retirement communities, marine construction or any random industry. Pick the current topic in the industry and set a challenge to come up with a solution to some small part of that topic.

Currently, I have my own challenge. I picked economic development. It's not my field directly, but it touches on some things that interest me. Specifically, I picked the topic of creating home-grown industries in the area where I live.

I did some quick research and started looking at what strengths we have: labor with a wide variety of skills but with more on the lower skills level; access to good shipping and international ports; good natural resources within a couple of days' shipping; university support centers; some governmental and private investment opportunities; and training support. I looked at what industries we had in the past and what industries we have now. I did a cursory match of all of these and came up with furniture building as my first result. It does not require great capital investments and is a minimal skills level industry. We have a strong forestry industry nearby. The market may be the biggest challenge, but we need to focus on a niche we can target. It is also an industry that can be developed in small or even cottage-style plants, as opposed to a car factory that needs millions in capital, equipment, land, suppliers and labor.

I attack the problem during my spare moments: driving, waiting at someone's office, early in the morning, doing yard work, etc. Will I solve this problem? Maybe. I might come up with some ideas that I can forward to someone else who might be able to do something with it. Maybe not. So, what does it do for me? It keeps me thinking and stretching my capabilities. It reinforces that the analytical skills I use for my regular job do not get dull. It gives me a break from the routine. It gives me new perspectives–always a welcome dose of renewal.

I will work on this for a while and put it away. Later, I will come up with another challenge and look at that for a while. What I bring back to my regular job, every time I do this, is a new urge to improve what I am doing there.

Down with the state(s), sort of

Imagine that you've been hired to serve as the CEO of a very, very big company. Everyone is looking to you to guide them through some very perilous times. You have a laptop full of plans and ideas for how to deal with things. You put your team in place. All set to go? Not so fast. In some divisions of this company, there's a middle layer of managers who don't really have to do what you tell them. They don't have to follow your policies. They can even go in the opposite direction. You have some power to give out money to get them to do what you want, but sometimes even that can't guarantee that they will. In fact, they work very hard (and often quite publicly) to get around your policies. They even talk to the media to tell them how bad your policies are. The kicker: you can't fire them. Still, if your policies don't succeed, you get the blame.

Would you want this job? Could anybody succeed under these circumstances? The strange thing is that lots of people want this job. It's almost hopeless. What company is this? The United States of America. No, really. The President is hired to run this country, but there are 50 governors, state legislatures, state court systems and state bureaucracies that stand between the President and the successful implementation of many policies.

What has been said repeatedly in the last few months is the need for the new administration to take decisive action on a number of issues, notably on the domestic agenda: (starting with) the economy, education, health care, energy, environment, etc. While much has been said about what the President plans to do in these areas, it really depends on the states implementing the policy–or not.

The one area where this is egregiously obvious is education. (But, the same problem arises in any number of issues.) Education is a state function. This means that we have 50+ education policies and programs. There is little, if any, consistency between states. What a student studies and learns in any given grade in one state, does not necessarily match with the same grade in another state. In some cases, it can even vary from district to district within the same state. This means that we don't have a national education system. We have a hodge-podge of educational systems without any real sense of what is in the national interest. The country is seriously behind in science and math knowledge and no real plan or way to improve. Theories of all stripes and colors come and go every fall. No matter what policy the President sets, it has very little impact in the classroom. If anything, the federal government is adding to the problem with burdensome regulations and paperwork.

The same goes for virtually all domestic issues. So, what can we do? It is time to rethink this state-federal division of conflicting responsibilities. While not yet advocating the elimination of the states, I think some serious thought needs to be given to cutting some layer of administration out. While it may have worked 200 years ago, this system, like the electoral college, has outlived its usefulness and is even making the situation worse.

Other countries that do not have this middle layer of opposition management, seem to be better at addressing national issues. It's time we took a true national approach to national problems. It's just good leadership.

The Cool Factor in Leadership

You've seen it before, probably many times. In a crisis or even when a standard level problem arises, the boss or supervisor blows a gasket or something like it. His or her voice gets louder. It rises to a shout. All of a sudden, tensions spread across the department or company like a wave or tsunami, depending on the level of crisis.

On the other hand, you may have also seen the boss or supervisor who remains calm, almost unconcerned, when the same problem comes up. Everyone around them remains just as calm. They discuss the challenge, map out a plan and then get to it. Where would you rather work?

So, what makes the difference here. According to an article
in The New York Times, genetics plays a major role, "But the calm temperament is not so superhuman, nor is it entirely the gift of the chosen few. It can be cultivated, even as the world cleaves around us."

Of course, they make the expected reference to No Drama Obama. They also connect this to the ordinary (if you would ever consider yourself as such) worker.

The article gives this example, "Imagine two people with equally high measures of neuroticism dealing with the same irascible boss. One gets yelled at and leaves the boss’s office perfectly composed; the other gets yelled at and flees to the bathroom in tears or storms out and kicks the wall. The difference is that the first person has learned to regulate the neuroticism."

There's more here and worth reading. But, ask yourself, "how do I deal with crisis and challenges?" If you're the cool, collected type, you're generally doing well. If not, time to learn how to control your responses.